Review of "How to Go to Therapy"

By Carl ShermanRandom House, 2001Review by Margo McPhillips on May 24th 2002

This is the best book about therapy
I've read in quite awhile.Written by a
journalist rather than a mental health professional, it is very informative
without either insulting the reader's intelligence or getting tangled in
professional issues.

I was initially drawn by the
title.With so many years of therapy
under my belt I was curious how else one could "go" to therapy besides
just getting up and going.Because of
so many years of therapy, I had forgotten the initial concerns and sometimes
difficulties with finding a therapist and then figuring out what therapy is all
about.

This book does a wonderful job
explaining the major types of therapy out there today (including online
therapy), the theory behind them and how they are supposed to work.These middle chapters about types of therapy
were the most interesting to me:

It is easy to skip chapters that
aren't of interest to the reader and each chapter about a particular type of
therapy includes Web URL addresses at the end of the chapter to find out more
information from a professional organization related to that type of
therapy.I would think this would be an
excellent book for psychology or therapy students.

The initial chapters are about how
to go about finding a therapist and what to expect from the first few sessions
of therapy.The hodge-podge of titles
and initials behind therapists names are decoded and there's a good chapter on
"Science and Psychotherapy" which discusses research about therapy
without getting bogged down in arguments about the research.Following the chapters about types of
therapy the books goes on to discuss money and insurance companies, the course
therapy takes, and termination of therapy.

At only 150 pages, it is a quick,
enjoyable read suitable for anyone interested in learning more about therapy.
Even with many years of individual and group therapy and psychology courses in
college, I feel I finished reading it with a better overall understanding of
therapy.

Margo McPhillips is a 1972 graduate
of the University of Maryland with a Bachelors degree in Sociology. She is
currently interested in the use of books on the Web, bibliotherapy, genealogy
as an online family/generational activity, and and is enrolled in the UserActive program to earn a
Certificate of Professional Development in Web Programming from the University
of Illinois to help her with her seven Web sites. Visit her new UserActive site
under development at http://mcphillips.ecorp.net/.